With new technologies and ever expanding capabilities, robots will have gained a foothold in every area of life in just a few years. That not only offers companies creative opportunities for new business models, as the participants in the TQ Round Table believe, but will also deliver more creative freedom for working people.
In 10 years at the latest, there will be robots in every area of our lives,” asserts Roger Seeberger, CEO of Jinn-Bot. “In the past, robots worked only in static settings, now we are seeing them progress to dynamic environments,” Seeberger continues. “It all started with the collaborative robots from Universal Robots, but nowadays it extends even further. In Switzerland, for example, the assistance robot Pepper from Softbank Robotics is deployed to accompany customers around supermarkets.”
Focus on collaboration
Lasse Kieffer, who worked at Universal Robots until a year ago, illustrates the trend by quickly sketching out a pyramid: “Initially – at the top of the pyramid – robots were mainly used in the automotive industry. Having proved themselves in that environment, they expanded into other sectors,” Kieffer adds, drawing his pen down towards the pyramid’s base. “Collaborative robots then enabled still wider applications, in which conventional robots had not previously been viable. That trend will continue, and the capabilities of collaborative robots will expand further.” For Kieffer, who is currently preparing to launch his own business, it is a natural development that is creating an ever increasing market for robotics applications. Dr Claus Lenz, Co-founder and CEO of Blue Ocean Robotics Germany, also believes that collaboration is the key word in relation to the ongoing development of robots. He sees three trends: “Firstly, robots and humans are coming ever closer together in industrial manufacturing. Secondly, we are also seeing that convergence in our day-to-day lives – with robotic vacuum cleaners and personal assistance robots for example. And thirdly, robots will start to collaborate more closely among themselves – multiple robots with different capabilities working together to perform a shared task.“
“The robotic sector now has technologies at its disposal that did not yet exist just a few years ago”
Jim Welander, System Field Applications Engineer, EBV Elektronik
Ever easier to control
Jim Welander, a Field Application Engineer for EBV Elektronik in Denmark specialising in support to robotics firms, sees developers of new robotics solutions also benefiting from advances in areas such as consumer electronics and the automotive sector: “As a result, the robotics sector now has technologies at its disposal that did not yet exist just a few years ago.” Moreover, robots are becoming ever easier to control, as Welander points out: “In earlier times you needed a degree in engineering to program a robot. Today it is something that every child learns in school – in Denmark at least.” People are generally becoming increasingly comfortable in the use of high tech. “Young people have no problem with it at all,” Roger Seeberger agrees. “But for older people it’s different. It will take a generation until they are also able to handle robots.” Claus Lenz disagrees. For him it’s just a question of usability. “If we can build a robot with a naturalistic interface, that is easy to understand, we will be able to integrate robots into older people’s lives too.” Roger Seeberger is entirely in agreement with that view – as long as the robot is working flawlessly. “But we are not yet currently advanced enough for non-technical people to deal with a malfunctioning robot.” Dr Lenz does not see that as an obstacle however: “When a dishwasher stops working, we call a service engineer. The same could happen in future with home robots. It might even create a new business model …”
Prices of the required electronics will fall
But how far can collaboration between humans and machines really go? “As far as a sex robot,” Lasse Kieffer asserts. Though Claus Lenz poses the question of what exact “collaboration” means: “Would the robot merely respond to people? Then we’re talking more about interaction. Genuine collaboration would mean people and robots pursuing the same goals.” But it will be a while yet before such robots actually appear on consumer markets. “The technology for collaborative, mobile systems already exists today, but it is still too expensive for domestic users,” says Jim Welander. The necessary sensors, such as laser scanners and lidar systems, as well as high-tech electric motors, are major cost drivers of multi-functional mobile assistance robots, which various forecasts estimate will be as much as 25,000 dollars. Yet it is precisely the advances in consumer electronics and the applications of electronics on this mass market that will drive down prices of electronic components dramatically in the years ahead. That is something all the round table participants agree on. Lasse Kieffer points out that the automotive market will also ensure the availability of cheaper systems for sensing the environment around robots for example: “The trend towards ever more autonomous cars will see increasing numbers of systems such as lidar and radar being fitted. That will ultimately make them cheaper for use in robots.”
“The ISO/TS 150GG technical specification standard for collaborative robots itself took six years to get published.”
Lasse Kieffer, ISO expert and future entrepreneur
Robots are becoming part of the Internet of Things
“But there will be no single robot capable of performing every task in the near future,” states Claus Lenz. “Rather, we will have specialised small-scale devices in our homes that are able to interact.” The Blue Ocean Robotics CEO foresees a combination of physical machines and smart Internet of Things (IoT) devices which will communicate with each other and share tasks among themselves. “Robots might provide a way of interlinking the digital and real worlds.” Roger Seeberger agrees: The training robots his company builds can be controlled on a smartphone using an Android app for example. “The boundaries between IoT devices and robots are now historical; they no longer exist today in fact.”
But that fact entails not only advantages – because robots are exposed to the same risks over the Internet as any other connected device. Cybersecurity is thus also an issue for robot developers too – or at least it should be. “Even though current robots actually process their data locally, and the Cloud is only used to distribute it, the same security standards should apply to the Internet connection as for a PC or a mobile device. That also includes regular security updates, which is an area where the robotics industry still needs to raise further awareness,” Claus Lenz warns.
Simulating the human brain
Cybersecurity is just one of the challenges that modern robots have to confront however. Another is intelligence: robots need it to move around an unfamiliar environment, or in order to communicate with people. That is not a problem in terms of the electronics, in Jim Welander’s view: “Chips featuring processor cores offering sufficient computing power for artificial intelligence are increasingly coming onto the market. The problems will rather lie in the software and related algorithms.” Claus Lenz stresses that for the time being, systems first have to be developed to interconnect different knowledge sources, and to combine machine learning with the data. Properly functional voice recognition also requires a certain level of intelligence, as the Blue Ocean CEO goes on to explain: “Context is key, because spoken words can have different meanings.” But it will doubtless be years before a robot actually acquires human-like intelligence. Roger Seeberger is convinced that robots which develop their own consciousness will most likely be created more by chance than anything else: “We don’t yet know much about our thought processes, so there is a lot of speculation, and a variety of theories and methods are being tried out. I suspect that at some point someone will suddenly say: oh, there it is! I believe it is much more important to consider whether we really should have robots with their own consciousness – but that is more of a political question.”
“The standards for secure internet connections should also be applied to robots.”
Dr. Claus Lenz, Co-founder and CEO, Blue Ocean Robotics
Machine safety also necessary for robots
As robots become more intelligent – or rather, become more autonomous – new challenges are also arising with regard to the safety of people and of the environment in which the robots operate. “Artificial intelligence is about making autonomous decisions that are hard to predict,” comments Welander. “But in order to build a safe robot you must be able to predict how it will behave in given situations.” There are of course also regulations governing robots within the machine and functional safety standards drawn up by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), as Lasse Kieffer explains: “There are committees covering industrial robots, as well as non-medical personal care robots, and service robots – including robotic vacuum cleaners for example. But the standards being developed will be very wide-ranging and generalised.” Kieffer worked intensively on the subject of functional safety for collaborative robots during his time with Universal Robots, and also attended relevant ISO meetings. So he knows that it normally takes several years for an ISO standard to be agreed and adopted – which means it might well have by then already been overtaken by new technology. That does not mean that robots not conforming to the standards are unsafe, as he stresses: “Nevertheless, the standards are helpful in designing new, safe robots.” He sets out his recommendation for how to build a truly safe robot with artificial intelligence: “There will be a number of simple safety features ensuring that the robot can be turned off.”
Improved understanding between humans and robots
An off-switch of such a kind is the simplest example of an human-robot interface. But our future mechatronic helpers will have much more complex solutions at their disposal for communicating with people and understanding their commands. “Present-day programming solutions for industrial robots are not an option for use in the domestic sector,” says Claus Lenz. “We need systems by which a robot can learn based on gestures, imitation, or speech.” Context-specific understanding of language will be key. Moreover, studies conducted by Blue Ocean Robotics have determined that being able to predict robots’ movements is important for trouble-free collaboration between robots and people. “If a robot’s movements simulate those of a human, and are not technical, the person concerned is more likely to grasp where an object is being passed for example,” Lenz explains. However, Roger Seeberger believes that it will not just be about robots adapting to human communication: “Living with robots will also alter the way we communicate – you only have to think about the impact smartphones have had on our communications.”
“There will one day be robots with their own consciousness.”
Roger Seeberger, Managing Director and Developer, Jinn-bot
The world of work will change
Robots will not only change our communication habits; they will also have an enormous impact on the world of work. “There have been numerous studies on the subject,” Claus Lenz reports. “A recent survey by McKinsey predicts that there will inevitably be changes as a result of increasing automation. But the use of robots will not necessarily lead to job losses; in fact, new jobs might be created. What kind they will be is not yet foreseeable – perhaps a robot’s safety assistant?” It is an idea that Lasse Kieffer likes: “Then we will not have robots assisting us, but people assisting robots!” Jim Welander is also optimistic, recalling the changes brought about by smartphones: “Just consider how many people are working in app development today – a job that no one would have dreamt of a few years ago.” Roger Seeberger expects to see much more profound effects on the world of work however: “It is essentially an ethical and political question, because we are going to have to reshape our society.” As one example, he cites the unconditional basic income, on which a referendum was held in Switzerland in 2016. “In future, the quality of work will no longer be expressed in hours, but in the extra time that people have to be creative.” Of course new technologies such as robotics entail risks, as Claus Lenz concurs: “People are naturally worried that their lives are going to change. But we can either worry about technology destroying our life, or we can work to ensure technology brings positive change to it.”